Liberty

Dr. Mary J. Ruwart shared a great message today from one of her social media accounts, that reads …

“Valentine’s Day is made for lovers. I like to think that those who love liberty are some of the best lovers of all. Real lovers won’t try to coerce you, manipulate you, or try to take your stuff. Real lovers care enough to give you the very best—freedom of choice. Many people think that lovers of liberty are cold and uncaring, because they don’t support government intervention and taxation. Just the opposite is true.”

To add to that, a number of people today seem to regard the love of liberty as childish; merely a selfish, egoic pursuit of the freedom to do whatever one wishes, damn the consequences. I submit that these same people tend to view the institution of the State through the lens of a kind of ‘parental love’, regarding it as a duty of the mother and father to watch over and protect the child who has not yet the inherent capacity to meet their own needs without possibly falling into trouble and hurting themselves or others, and that this justifies a responsibility to prevent the child from doing whatever they want, thus limiting their freedom.

The fundamental caveat to this viewpoint is that the child must eventually grow up, else they forever remain a child.

At some point, if children are to mature, they must have the freedom to think and act for themselves, as well as the freedom to fail, and assume responsibility for those failures, which is the process of learning and growth. When control and structure eventually cease to foster growth and instead begin to constrict and stifle it, then the parental love that seeks to protect must also grow with it, otherwise, it risks turning into its opposite, thereby ceasing to be love. It then becomes overbearing and domineering, and paradoxically irresponsible. This is precisely what the State has become. [This article originally appeared on Steemit.com. Continue reading here …]